Shitau
by Wolfserpent
Summary: A tale of love, reincarnation, regret and moths...


Author's Note: Forgive me if Gatenmaru seems a bit out of character in this. I rationalize it by the fact that he can't be a haughty bastard all the time. For those of you not familiar with the character, he appears in volume 19 of the manga and episodes 51 and 52 of the anime. I suppose there *could* be spoilers contained herein, but they're not exactly shocking and they're only about Gatenmaru, not the show itself.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Shitau  
  
  
  
"Taji! Bring that one to me!"  
  
"Of course, Boss! Coming!"  
  
The woman hit against the side of the horse with a dull thud. Gatenmaru grabbed her by the hair, and when the malnourished strands began to give way, by the back of her thin kimono.  
  
She did not fight. She merely sat hunched over, eyes flat, her face showing no emotion whatsoever.  
  
Gatenmaru's white stallion whinnied and turned to the north, galloping away from the village. Several times he had to grab the woman to keep her from sliding off, and when he seized her, he did it by the throat.  
  
"Master youkai," she finally said in a sick, brittle voice. "Turn here. Go to the west. I will show you a great treasure before you take my life."  
  
Gatenmaru raised his eyebrows. She knew he was a youkai? Insightful woman, she. No wonder she had been the village healer, even though she couldn't banish the demons growing inside of her.  
  
He turned the stallion's face towards the west. After a few minutes, the healer pointed a thin, skeletal finger to a mountain that towered in the distance, shrouded by fog and set against the backdrop of darkening sky and black forest.  
  
"Another of your brethren resides there. When I was young, I would visit him, for he is lonely and cursed, but now I am a dying old hag."  
  
"Yes, that you are," Gatenmaru replied, grinning.  
  
The woman turned her face to him. She could not be ancient, for she had most of her teeth and there were few wrinkles on her face, but her skin sagged and was pale, and her hair was dry and brittle far beyond its years. She weighed next to nothing. She was naught but a skeleton, covered in waxen skin and a rotting kimono.  
  
"Well, hag, you've done me a service. Now I must return it."  
  
At that, Gatenmaru grabbed her by the throat and with a single flick of his wrist snapped her spine. The final release of death. She would reincarnate somewhere else, in a body that was not already wasted away. Perhaps he would devour her lifeblood then.  
  
Gatenmaru tossed the body aside and kicked the horse into a run. The mountain loomed up closer and closer to him, its purple shadow becoming black crags and moonlit rock face.  
  
He left the horse at the foot of the mountain, tied to a gnarled pine. It would stay, he knew, obediently, just as its mother had, and her mother before her. All of Gatenmaru's horses were swift and strong and docile. And, most importantly, the smell of youkai did not paralyze them with fear.  
  
Gatenmaru climbed the mountain easily, although his pants snagged on several occasions. It would have been easier to fly, yes, but that would mean remaking the human skin again. That was always such a chore. He had to spin it, and then fold himself down into it, which was rather uncomfortable.  
  
He saw the cavern mouth several dozen feet above him.  
  
Gatenmaru sighed. The hag better not have been lying.  
  
He wondered, then, why he bothered. What manner of youkai could possibly be worth all of this?  
  
The moth demon snorted contemptuously, brushing a strand of wavy hair from his eyes.  
  
He'd better be beautiful. Very beautiful...  
  
The cave mouth yawned before Gatenmaru, blacker than the night sky which stretched on endlessly overhead.  
  
No trap awaited him, though he did feel the slight tingle of magic. The curse on the youkai who resided within.   
  
Gatenmaru reached out and touched the side of the cavern lightly, feeling little of the rough sides through the heavy fabric. The cave narrowed, here, and he ducked to avoid being hit by the low ceiling, his ebony hair hissing in complaint at being forced to touch the harsh rock.  
  
There was a light just up ahead. The instinct was to rush towards it, bury himself in the light, but Gatenmaru fought it. He moved closer to the incandescence gingerly, until it grew so brilliant that he had to shield his eyes.  
  
The barrier which held his brother youkai inside was radiant with white light. Gatenmaru reached out to it, and his hand passed through with ease, causing no discomfort.  
  
Inside, the difference in brightness was so great that it was painful while his eyes adjusted.  
  
When he opened them, the sight which Gatenmaru beheld left him speechless.  
  
The youkai sat amidst the crippling folds of his unearthly pale silk kimonos, playing with a glass orb that held a burning radiance within. All around it fluttered moths, dancing against the glass, playing with the light.  
  
He was, indeed, beautiful. Skin white and flawless as the light itself, cascades of blued hair pouring down his back, spilling onto the floor, surrounding a body that was both tall and slender.  
  
The youkai turned towards Gatenmaru, affixing him with water-blue eyes that had neither whites nor pupils, which glittered like jewels.  
  
"Hello," the youkai said, raising one hand slightly in greeting.  
  
Gatenmaru dropped to his knees, to be at eye-level with this being of such grace and beauty.  
  
"Why were you sealed here? What fool seals away a splendor so great?" Gatenmaru demanded, taking the youkai's hand between his own.  
  
The youkai smiled shyly, hiding his mouth behind his free sleeve.  
  
"Because I angered a great magician. Why do you come here to visit me, Lord?"  
  
"The hag from the village..."  
  
"Yuriko?"  
  
"I don't know her name."  
  
The youkai sighed. "She visited me, long ago. Then she became sickly... I'm sure she's dead by now..."  
  
"I...would not know," Gatenmaru said, feeling, for the first time in his life, a pang of guilt. "What did you do, which angered this magician?"  
  
The pale demon sighed. He hung his head.  
  
"I was a courtesan. I love humanity; I admire them, because they are so weak and imperfect. So I would spend all my days around them, being adored by women and men alike.  
  
"Then, a great lord asked me to become his bride. I laughed, and told him, 'I am a man.' He said it mattered not, only that my beauty be his forever.  
  
"So we were married by his court priest. He kept me locked away in a tower, in his castle that stood on the western face of this mountain. When I begged and wept to be allowed to return to life, to those who loved me, he merely said that when I agreed to marry him, I relinquished my right to be adored. That my beauty was for him alone."  
  
At this, the youkai began to weep. Gatenmaru reached out and wiped the tears from the frail one's eyes.  
  
Once composed, he continued.  
  
"I tried to escape him. Time and time again, I flew away, but he would always find me.  
  
"Finally, he told me that he no longer wished to chase me to the ends of the earth. My beauty was his, and because we were married, so was my soul. He bound me in these robes, enchanted so that I can never move them, and sealed this cavern so that were I to move them, I could never return to those who I loved.  
  
"He came, often, to fuck me and to gaze upon me. He was my only company until Yuriko stumbled upon me, searching for rare herbs which grew only in the dank of caves."  
  
The youkai sighed. "And now, both are dead. You, my lord, will you stay with me for a while?"  
  
Gatenmaru smiled. He placed a kiss on the glowing youkai's throat.  
  
"I will."  
  
The youkai smiled adoringly. "Do you have a name, my lord?"  
  
"Gatenmaru."  
  
"So...you are a moth?"  
  
"I am."  
  
"My keeper kept great aviaries of them. Moths and butterflies, they were his crest, and from them he drew his magic."  
  
Gatenmaru laughed. "Then perhaps I am the spirit of your keeper, incarnated in the form of a moth as a punishment."  
  
A smile. "No. You are nothing like my keeper."  
  
"Now, what is your name?" Gatenmaru asked.  
  
The white youkai smiled.  
  
"Name? I was never given one. Do you see? I am nothing but an object to anyone. Even to the humans, I was nothing but a pretty thing to fondle and adore and covet. To Yuriko, only was I a real thing. But even she never gave me a name. I am, and I will always be, Youkai."  
  
Gatenmaru frowned. He stared at the radiant being who sat before him, more beautiful than he'd ever imagined anything could ever be, and in the youkai's eyes he saw nothing but misery. Nothing but pain. They barely lived.  
  
"May I call you Shitau?"  
  
Shitau smiled. He reached a hand out to Gatenmaru and stroked the darker one's face.  
  
"You may..."  
  
Gatenmaru leaned forward and encircled Shitau within his arms. He kissed the object of his adoration, of his love, and Shitau reciprocated.   
  
As they lay together, later, basking in the warmth of one another, Shitau said, calmly, "Gatenmaru. You must go now."  
  
"I will never leave you."  
  
"But you must."  
  
"I cannot."  
  
"You must..."  
  
Gatenmaru stood. Shitau stared up at him.  
  
"I will return for you, Shitau. Soon. You and I will be together for eternity."  
  
Shitau smiled. "And I will wait. My love...  
  
"I will be here. Waiting for you."  
  
When Gatenmaru returned to the village, his men were crowded around a campfire, cooking stolen chickens, admiring the spoils of their latest raid. "Boss, where have you been?" one inquired.  
  
Gatenmaru regarded the dirty, filthy, all too human brigand with a glare.  
  
"Don't bother in my business," Gatenmaru huffed. "Come on. All of you. We're leaving now."  
  
The men groaned, but they complied.  
  
Gatenmaru and his band of thieves rode off, away from Shitau's mountain.  
  
And then, not a month later, with one fatal slash Gatenmaru died. Dead, at the hand of a hanyou.  
  
The last face he saw, the last voice he heard, were echoes of Shitau, dredged up by imminent death.  
  
"I will be here. Waiting for you."  
  
Shitau would wait forever, now. Gatenmaru had lied to him.  
  
Now, as his body dissolved, flew apart, Gatenmaru felt a second twinge of guilt, of regret.  
  
You and I will be together for eternity.  
  
Gatenmaru died, then. The pain stopped. The noise stopped. Nothing existed. Nothing...  
  
And then he opened his eyes, and beheld Shitau.  
  
He opened his mouth to declare that he had returned, had kept his promise, but found that he no longer had a mouth with which to speak.  
  
Shitau held the light-globe in his delicate hands, staring into it, and without thinking Gatenmaru fluttered against it.  
  
A blued-white moth with autumn wings. Brown and red and gold. That was all he was now: a moth. Nothing more. No more poison, no more intelligence, merely an insect. This was his punishment for being haughty, for being power-mad.  
  
Gatenmaru tore himself from the globe and came to rest on the greater source of light.  
  
Shitau smiled.  
  
The promise had been kept. The youkai and his love would remain, together, until existence was no more. 


End file.
